Riding escalators between the eight sparse-but-thematic floors at Tokyo’s virgin Opening Ceremony flagship, we imagined the architect’s rationalisation of spending a good portion of the budget on cubby houses and a candy pink kitchen.

Will US post boxes really sell more handbags? Well no, but…

That’s the thing with tricked-up retail environments. We imagine the designers of the Shibuya space, formerly housing Movida, explaining they’d aimed to lead shoppers on a journey of exploration and interaction with the diverse product offering in themed concept areas that eschewed the hallmarks of a ‘shop’. They’d be encouraged to linger, but never approached. Japanese consumers are suffocated by so-called ‘service’ and many don’t actually like to be coddled, they’d reckon.

We were rapt to find Camilla Skorvgaard’s AW09/10 clodhoppers in the mix and imagine a solid local market. But at close to US1,000, we weren’t inspired to, um, interact with them.